A. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention may generally relate to systems and methods for video monitoring of people in, for instance, a retail space, and analysis of the video to derive quantitative and/or qualitative conclusions based on human behaviors captured on video.
B. Description of the Related Art
Retail stores and public gathering places such as stadiums need to understand their traffic flow for various reasons. Retail stores, for instance, benefit from accurately understanding their conversion rates (i.e. the ratio of visitors who make a purchase to the total visitors of a retail store), and the effectiveness of individual sales people. A number of technologies have developed over the years for better understanding traffic flow. One such technology is the optical beam break people counter. This type of device is typically installed at entrances and exits of a space to be monitored, such as a retail store. In principle, when a person passes through the entryway or exit they break an optical beam thus triggering a count. Some more sophisticated beam break people counters include a pair of beams which enables the device to determine direction of travel (i.e. entering or exiting) based on the order in which the beams are broken. While these devices can be valuable tools, they have many drawbacks. For example, optical devices tend to be prone to false counts for a variety of reasons including interference from background light, and the devices' inability to distinguish people from inanimate objects.
In more recent years video based systems have emerged for monitoring spaces where people tend to gather. These technologies in general tend to partially overcome some of the false count problems of beam break people counters because they are less prone to interference. However, a number of shortcomings remain unaddressed. For instance, many video systems have limited, if any, capacity for distinguishing between humans and inanimate objects, and may not be at all capable of distinguishing between different classes of human subjects such as customers and salespeople. Existing systems are also deficient in their ability to identify relationships between people in a field of view, such as people traveling and/or shopping together as a group, or the fact that a salesperson is helping a customer make a purchasing decision. Existing systems also are unsuitable for monitoring the work schedules of employees. For instance, they are unable to determine the amount of time that an employee has spent on-site performing his/her duties versus taking break time or otherwise being idle. Some embodiments of the present invention may provide one or more benefits or advantages over the prior art.